


Parallel Lines

by Mordukai



Series: Daichi rarepair week 2017 [4]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Depression, Drug Use, F/M, I'm so sorry, M/M, Multi, NOTHING IS GRAPHIC, Non-Graphic Violence, Pining, Sadness, Soulmate AU, Suicide, Unrequited Love, lots of sadness, there's not much happiness in this story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-14
Updated: 2017-02-14
Packaged: 2018-09-24 08:22:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9713168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mordukai/pseuds/Mordukai
Summary: It's pretty easy to figure out who your soulmate is. Just punch them and you'll feel it to.Daichi hasn't met his soulmate yet, but he's still looking, still hoping.





	

**Author's Note:**

> For the Daichi rarepair week  
> Prompt: soulmate au  
> This is my first attempt at a soulmate au

All his life, Daichi has grown up feeling someone else's pain. It's not abnormal in this world. In fact, if he hadn't, it would have been stranger. From the moment you're born, you're psychically linked to another person. When they feel pain, either emotionally or physically, you feel it too. Not to the same intensity, luckily. If your soulmate breaks their leg, you don't feel the break, but you feel an ache in your leg. If your soulmate loses someone close to them, you don't feel the intense wave of grief but you do feel sad. Small injuries like paper cuts barely even register. It's not so bad, unless you have a soulmate who's particularly accident prone, or has a long term illness, or chronic depression. It's not so bad for the majority of people. And it's all worth it, once you meet that special person, and you can start living your life properly, the way it's meant to be lived. You can settle down, buy a house, have children. Up until that point, you haven't really been living, you've been waiting. And yes, you still feel their pain, but it becomes a useful tool in your relationship.

Or at least that's how it's supposed to go. That's how it happened for Daichi's best friend, Suga. He started getting phantom pains in his knee during high school, and then he met Oikawa at a practice match. It wasn't love at first sight, but Suga was curious about the support bandage on Oikawa's knee, the same knee that had been paining Suga, so he started chatting to him, and it went from there. By the time they had graduated high school and left for college, the two were in a relationship.

Or Yachi and Tsukishima, who figured it out during the preliminary finals match against Shiratorizawa when Tsukishima injured his hand and Yachi felt it in hers. Or Kenma and Hinata, when Hinata took a ball to the face and Kenma collapsed. In fact, he couldn't think of anyone he knew who hadn't already found their soulmate. Some later than others, it was true, but he's in his thirties now. Even his parents, who kept reassuring him that it would happen sooner or later, and not to worry, they didn't mind waiting for grandchildren, had met by the time they were in their late twenties.

It wasn't that he didn't feel the pain. He felt it a lot. Lots of pain from what he could only assume were injuries; what might have been a broken arm, twice, and a lot of pain in his knees when he was a child. And then as a teenager it was in his fists. Painful knuckles. Pain in his head, round his eyes, like a black eye.

"They're a fighter," says Asahi to him one day after school when Daichi is suddenly hit by a blinding headache. "That's the fourth one this week, and always right after school. They're getting into fights."

"You might be right," says Daichi, grimacing and massaging his eye. Maybe it's sexist, but now he's pretty sure his soulmate is a boy. He's never seen girls give each other black eyes before. He's glad of this revelation. He's always found boys to be more attractive than girls, not that he's confided this in anyone. Not out of fear of homophobia, though. Asahi is one of his best friends, and he's been seeing Aone for over a year now, and Suga, his other best friend, has been getting closer to Oikawa recently. But that's different because they're soulmates. What if he says he's gay and then it turns out his soulmate is in fact a girl? And he's pretty sure he is gay, not bi or anything else. He's so afraid of being disappointed, finding out that his soulmate isn't someone he wants to be with. He wonders if that has ever happened. And then he doubles over, clutching his stomach and grunting as pains shoots through him. "I wish they were better at fighting and took less hits," he groans.

The pain lessens as he gets older, although a couple years into college there's a resurgence in the fights, and something that feels suspiciously like it might have been a knife wound. At this point he's almost afraid to meet his soulmate. He's a gentle person, only competitive when it comes to volleyball, and he can't even bare to watch people get hurt in movies. He always covers his eyes whenever there's blood. 

Now he's thirty five, and still alone. Not alone, alone. He has Suga, and his husband Oikawa and their adopted son. Suga asks him to be the godfather the day they bring home the sticky, crying toddler. Oikawa is looking terrified, despite desperately wanting a child, but Suga is smiling, radiant despite the snot the kid has smeared all over his once clean shirt. And Daichi says yes, of course, and even when Oikawa gets better at the whole parenting thing Daichi feels almost like a third father for the kid and he loves it. And Tsukishima and Yachi have a daughter, and Asahi and Aone have three kids. Ennoshita and Kiyoko are expecting their first. He's surrounded by people, family, love. But he still hasn't found his soulmate. The person he imagines as an angry, scary man, probably bigger than him, covered in scars and wounds, always fighting, always hurting.

Until he feels the sadness. Now, at thirty five, the intense pain and sadness. He sees a doctor, sees a therapist, tries every medication available but it won't go away and he realises that it's not his pain and sadness, it belongs to someone else. It belongs to his soulmate. And now he rethinks his mental image. Because the thug of a man he had imagined before could never be this sad, right?

And then finally, it's unbearable, and Daichi is sitting in Asahi and Aone's kitchen with his old school friend, crying into a mug of tea. Asahi is sitting uncomfortably next to him, awkwardly patting his shoulder, unsure of how to help. Aone has taken the kids out so they can have some time alone. 

"It will pass," says Asahi. "It won't last forever."

"It's so intense," says Daichi. He wipes his nose with the back of his sleeve. "I never thought it was possible to feel so sad." 

And then he clutches his chest, as his heart screams at him in pain, and the tears are flowing freely and he lets out a cry.

And a moment later, it's gone. The pain. All of it. Gone.

This is worse than before, because he knows, he just knows what has happened. And he knows that he'll always be alone now.

He never meets the fun loving blonde with the undercut and the piercings. The boy with a strong sense of justice, which gets him into too many fights with kids older and stronger than him. The boy who falls in with the wrong crowd and gets caught up in drugs and knife fights. Who does time in prison but still has hope. Until things get too much and depression takes over. The man who takes his own life, only thirty four. The man Daichi was supposed to love, but never knew. The man Daichi will never know the name of, but who he will always miss. Terushima Yuuji.

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry it was so sad, I wasn't in the mood to write something with a happy ending


End file.
